The Day Legal Beer Came Back to America

For nearly thirteen years, the Eighteenth Amendment had outlawed the sale of alcohol across the United States. That began to unravel in 1933. Congress passed the Cullen-Harrison Act, which President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed on March 22, 1933, legalising beer and wine of low alcohol content. On signing it, Roosevelt reportedly quipped that it seemed a good time for a beer.

The law did not take effect immediately. It was set to go live on April 7, 1933, and as the clock struck 12:01 a.m., trucks rolled out of breweries laden with kegs and bottles for the first time since 1920.

The Cullen-Harrison Act let people buy and drink low-alcohol beer and wine in public again.

Crowds gathered outside taverns and breweries to celebrate. Americans were estimated to have downed more than a million barrels on that first day alone. Full repeal of Prohibition followed months later with the Twenty-first Amendment, but April 7 is still marked each year as National Beer Day.